1. A step or degree in any series, rank, quality, order; relative position or standing; as, grades of military rank; crimes of every grade; grades of flour. They also appointed and removed, at their own pleasure, teachers of every grade. Buckle.
2. In a railroad or highway: (a) The rate of ascent or descent; gradient; deviation from a level surface to an inclined plane; — usually stated as so many feet per mile, or as one foot rise or fall in so many of horizontal distance; as, a heavy grade; a grade of twenty feet per mile, or of 1 in 264. (b) A graded ascending, descending, or level portion of a road; a gradient.
3. (Stock Breeding)
Defn: The result of crossing a native stock with some better breed. If the crossbreed have more than three fourths of the better blood, it is called high grade. At grade, on the same level; — said of the crossing of a railroad with another railroad or a highway, when they are on the same level at the point of crossing. — Down grade, a descent, as on a graded railroad. — Up grade, an ascent, as on a graded railroad. — Equating for grades. See under Equate. — Grade crossing, a crossing at grade.
GRADE
Grade, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Graded; p. pr. & vb. n. Grading.]
1. To arrange in order, steps, or degrees, according to size, quality, rank, etc.
2. To reduce to a level, or to an evenly progressive ascent, as the line of a canal or road.
3. (Stock Breeding)
Defn: To cross with some better breed; to improve the blood of.
GRADELY
Grade"ly, a. Etym: [Cf. AS. grad grade, step, order, fr. L. gradus.
See Grade.]